Meeting Recap: 2017-2018 Annual Meeting and Celebration

On May 14th FCS Professionals members and guests gathered at Urban Eatery in Minneapolis for the annual meeting and celebration. Heavy downpours of rain caused some traffic and parking headaches but everyone’s perseverance paid off! It was a wonderful evening of great food, laughter, and celebrating the accomplishments of our organization.

The evening began with dessert shooters made by FCS Professionals board member Chef Amy Lawson. Our scheduled speaker, Kinza Christenson, suffered an injury and was unable to attend. In her place was the delightful Brenda Elsagher a cancer survivor and comedian. Brenda’s career began in the beauty industry where she was a hair stylist and salon owner. A colon cancer diagnosis at the age of 39 spurred a career change to comedy. Laughter is such a powerful way of coping with difficult situations. She was a mom to young kids at the time of her diagnosis, surgeries, and treatments. Finding the humor in trials of life has become her calling in life. She has become a sought after speaker to healthcare workers, cancer survivors, womens groups and more. You may have even seen her in commercials on TV promoting colon cancer screening. She has written five books delving into topics like cancer survival, aging, living with ostomies, caregiving, and funny and inspiring medical stories. Brenda shared many stories with our group and we all shared many laughs. She even took us through some laughing exercises and explained the health benefits of laughter.

After Brenda’s presentation, dinner was served. Attendees dined on a choice of vegetarian curry, chicken curry, salmon salad or steak salad. All enjoyed macaroons from Carousel Macaroons for our second dessert.

Awards were presented to our 2017-2018 winners.

Emerging Leader Award: Liz Sellet

Spirit Award Winner: Gerry Luepke

FCS Professional of the Year: Colleen Zenk

Complete information on the award winners will be in a separate blog posting in the near future!

The annual meeting was held after the award winners were announced. President Gerry Luepke presided. A video highlighting the accomplishments of FCS Professionals was played. In new business, the organization bylaws were reworked this spring to be easier to read and took out redundancies. The bylaws were approved by membership. The final act was the ceremonial passing of the gavel to the new President Jean Knaak.